Paolo stood up and looked across at the Calypso and then at the Feniglia beyond her. For several moments the Fructidor's bow remained steady, as though the ship had run aground; then he thought he detected a slight movement just as he heard a splash when the last of the spring slid into the water. It was too slight and too slow; he could already hear the thunder and hiss of the French frigate's bow wave and the occasional thump as a sail flapped.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ramage knew that not only had he made a grave mistake but he had probably killed Paolo, Kenton, Jackson, Rossi and Stafford, and the rest of the men whose names he could not for the moment remember. He had probably killed them all because he must have measured the distance from the harbour entrance to the Feniglia and back wrongly. He was unlikely to have done that, he decided, so he must have relied too much on a chart which he knew could not be accurate to a few hundred yards. Not accurate for longer distances like those, although it would be accurate enough in giving the width between the headlands forming the harbour, or the length of Isolotto . . .
He should have allowed for chart errors of up to a cable. Two hundred yards would have been enough; two hundred yards would mean that at this moment the Calypso would be between that damned French frigate and the Fructidor. Not just between them, but forcing the Frenchman to turn away and fight, ship to ship. The fight would have been the fairest ever fought in the Mediterranean, or anywhere else for that matter, because they were identical ships.
He looked again at the French frigate, her mastheads beginning to tower high fine on the starboard bow, waiting for the tell-tale flap of the luffs and leeches of her sails or the rush of men to sheets and braces that would warn him the moment she began to turn away. Two hundred yards to go, one hundred and seventy-five, one hundred and fifty, one hundred and twenty-five . . . That was curious, it was still about one hundred and twenty-five. . .
"The bomb's swinging! She's swinging!" Southwick was bellowing. In his excitement he slapped his captain on the back. "Oh, just look at her, sir!"
"She's slipped her spring," said Aitken, matter-of-factly. "That's surprised those Frenchmen!"
"Aye, the Fructidor's swinging right across her bow! Will they dare ram the bomb? One of her masts might whip one of their yards out! By God," Southwick shouted, "we'll have them yet!"
Ramage snatched the speaking trumpet from Aitken's hand, put it to his lips and was startled when a roaring voice he did not recognize as his own hurled itself at the seamen at the guns below him.
"Stand by down there!" he bellowed. "There's just a chance we'll save 'em. Starboard guns, there: open fire as the target bears, and keep on firing until she strikes her colours!"
The men cheered and yelled in reply as he handed the speaking trumpet back to Aitken, who said excitedly: "They're beginning to turn away, sir -"
They could turn before they had intended and yet still give the Fructidor a broadside; that much was obvious. But although the race to interpose the Calypso between the frigate and the bomb ketch was over, there was time for a quick sidestep.
He snatched back the speaking trumpet, yelled at the men at the wheel to turn four points to larboard and, speaking trumpet to his mouth, turned again to the men at the guns. "Listen down there!" he roared. "You're going to see that Frenchman for less than a minute, and the range will be about a hundred yards. Aim for the hull, otherwise the Fructidor will get their whole broadside!"
He turned away. Damnation, this was like the Mall with three horses bolting at once: to come round to larboard far enough for the Calypso's starboard-side guns to bear meant that he would have to shave under the Fructidor's stern the moment the guns had fired . . . Still, there was no choice!
The Frenchman was broad on the bow as the Calypso swung one way to bring her guns to bear and the Frenchman turned the other in a desperate last-moment attempt to dodge the broadside they now saw would hit them.
"Here they come!" Ramage found himself roaring into the speaking trumpet and it seemed from all round him there was the popping of muskets as Renwick's Marines fired at the Frenchman's quarterdeck. The 12-pounders thundered in a rippling fire one after the other down the starboard side, but Ramage hardly heard them because of the blood beating in his ears. He saw puffs as the guns fired, and then thick clouds of oily-yellow smoke as the puffs merged and began to stream out of the ports ... An enormous cough, another and then another as the carronades almost beside him fired, flinging the lemon-sized grapeshot into the French ship.
He glimpsed the Fructidor only a few yards away and almost dead ahead. "Hard a' starboard," he bellowed at the men at the wheel.
Smoke and noise - the heavy thudding of roundshot hitting solid wood, the whine of splinters being thrown up in swathes, the bell-like clanging of roundshot ricocheting from metal . . . the Frenchmen had let go their broadside at the Calypso, tit for tat. Now the men were scurrying around reloading and - hell-fire and damnation, any moment the Calypso will be so far round she would be taken a'back - no, the men were spinning the wheel, almost climbing up the spokes in their urgency - and Aitken was standing beside them, looking as calm as if he was just checking that the gillie's gralloching knife was sharp enough before they cleaned the deer he had just shot.
Where was everyone? The French frigate was squaring her yards to run off before the wind, smoke streaming from the larboard gunports as though she was on fire, and the Fructidor was sliding past on the quarter. Every man in the Calypso who was not busy loading the guns or steering the ship was standing at gunports or even perched on the hammock nettings cheering as the frigate swept by.
"I saw young Orsini," Southwick said gruffly. "And Kenton, and the rest of them. No damage to the ketch; I don't think they had any casualties. The Frenchman was more concerned with firing at us."
Ramage nodded and looked away because the old master seemed to want to have a good weep from sheer relief and Ramage felt like joining him. The French frigate was now five hundred yards ahead ... the turn to bring the Calypso's broadside guns to bear had cost her dearly in distance.
"Mr Aitken," he said, "let fall the topgallants, and set the stunsails. Not the courses; I'm not fighting under courses. That Frenchman's lucky they didn't catch fire. We'll cut the stunsails adrift when we get alongside him."
Southwick pointed at the Brutus, which was setting sail. "What's Wagstaffe up to, then?"
Ramage thought for a moment. "Going into Porto Ercole to see what he can find, I suspect, and Kenton will be close in his wake."
Southwick lifted up his quadrant and carefully measured the angle made by the Frenchman's mizentopmasthead. He then looked at his watch and, after putting the quadrant down carefully, noted the angle and the time on the slate. "It'll depend on which of us has the cleanest bottom," he said to no one in particular. "So if he's been growing barnacles in Toulon, we'll beat him providing the Toulon barnacles are bigger than the ones we brought over from the West Indies."
Ramage changed his mind, and to gain a knot or two gave the order to set the fore and main courses, the largest sails in the ship. While they were being let fall he reflected that a stern chase is a long chase ... That had been dinned into him from the days when he was a young midshipman. The frigate's name was Le Furet. The Ferret. He had forgotten to look until this moment, but it showed up well in the telescope. The letters were carefully painted in blue on a red background; indeed, the whole transom was carefully painted. Not at all like the usual French ship of war, especially of the size of a frigate. There was always a shortage of paint in any dockyard, but he knew that in French dockyards these days it was critical, and no French captain was going to spend his own money on the extra few tins of paint that brightened up a ship ... To spend money on gold leaf would be an anti-revolutionary act, he supposed. Anyway, the Furet looked a good deal smarter than most French frigates he had seen. Still, he had a feeling that by the time this day was over he was going to be heartily sick of the sight of the Furet's transom; her captain obviously knew how to get the last quarter of a knot out of his ship.